The Supreme Court yesterday annulled a Split County Court first instance verdict which acquitted eight former military police of war crimes against civilians committed at Lora prison in the southern coastal city of Split, and requested a retrial before a different panel of judges.
"The Supreme Cpurt verdict demonstrates the need to expand training on war crime trials to all county court judges and prosecutors," said Semneby.
The Supreme Court concluded that the Split County Court failed to establish the facts.
"Since many of the witnesses that were not heard live in Serbia and Montenegro, the verdict also underlined the importance of improving inter-state judicial co-operation," Semneby said.
He added the Supreme Court decision was consistent with observations made by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission during its monitoring of war crime trials in Croatia. Between January 2002 and August 2004, the Supreme Court reversed 47 of 70 county court verdicts.
The OSCE Mission released two war crime reports in June, acknowledging recent improvements but also identifying areas where further reform was needed, Semneby said, concluding that the Mission, which participated in the initial round of training seminars on war crime trials for judges and prosecutors, was ready to provide further assistance in the training.